Unraveled By Blood, A Sweetblood World Vampire Romance

by Laurie London

  “Of course,” Zeph said. “If a dude can’t count on his friend to drop everything and put a squad together to capture some bad guys, who can he count on?”

  Zeph introduced them to his sister, Brenna, and her fiancé, Finn, the pilot.

  Chestnut-brown eyes sparkling with mischief, Finn gave Selena a fist bump. “A fellow human and sweetblood. Niiiice. Glad to know we’re not the only crazy ones here.”

  Pretending to be offended, Brenna shoved him playfully, then turned to Selena. “I hope you don’t mind that I came. I’m not a Guardian, so I won’t be going with them on the raid. Thought maybe you’d like some company.”

  Or maybe Mateo didn’t want to leave her alone while all this went down. Selena smiled. It would be nice to talk to another woman, one who was a part of Mateo’s world. She liked them already.

  Zeph wrapped a muscular arm around his sister’s shoulders and gave her a hearty shake. “Admit it, sis. You came cuz you missed your baby brother.”

  Brenna poked him in the ribs, hard, and he jumped away from her, holding his side and laughing.

  Mateo rolled his eyes. “What was it like growing up with this guy?”

  “Just like you’d imagine,” Brenna answered, tucking a lock of flaxen hair behind one ear. “A nightmare. A complete and utter nightmare.”

  Finn, who was absently playing with a chain he’d pulled from his pocket, snorted.

  “I’ll have you know,” Zeph said, “that she used to drag me to the shops and I had to pretend to be her boyfriend. You know, hold her hand and shit. Thought it would increase her social cred if people thought she was dating a total stud.”

  Brenna made a sound of exasperation. “You’re such a narcissist. See what I had to put up with, you guys?”

  Zeph winked. “Notice how she didn’t call me a liar?”

  Selena then met the other two Guardians. Roxy was about the same height she was, with dark blond hair and beautiful golden eyes. The woman pulled the neck of her shirt down, exposing an infinity tattoo with a rose. “I’m your resident dakai expert.”

  “No shit,” Mateo said, giving a low whistle.

  Roxy nodded. “I worked undercover in a sect back east. I’ve thought about having it removed—Santiago hates it—but I figured it might come in handy sometime.”

  Kip was the most reserved one in the group, and from what Selena could tell, the youngest. His smile was genuine but guarded, and after quickly shaking her hand, he moved away and stayed off to the side.

  On the walk back to the mansion, Selena was surprised when her phone beeped. She didn’t know there was any coverage up here. It was a missed call from her dad. Hanging back from the group, she hit redial. He wasn’t into long phone conversations, so she knew this would be quick.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Where are you? I stopped by the kitchen, but you weren’t there. And I stopped by your house. Marcella wants me to order a cake for her nephew’s birthday.”

  Irritation pricked at the back of her neck. The woman couldn’t contact Selena herself? In addition to all the handyman projects she was having him do around her house, she was now having Selena’s father do her errands too? It ticked her off that her father was so smitten by this woman that he couldn’t see how he was being taken advantage of. He was a smart, intelligent man. Couldn’t he see what was going on? Love could be blind sometimes, she thought, then laughed inwardly at the irony. After all, she was the one who had fallen for a vampire.

  “I…ran into an old friend.” She hesitated, deciding whether to say anything more. She couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, nor did she have time for a lengthy explanation of half-truths that would satisfy him.

  “Oh? Who is that?”

  But she couldn’t flat-out lie to her father, either. “Mateo. He’s back in town for a few days, so I’m…up at Broadmoor right now.”

  Silence.

  Had the call been dropped? “Dad?”

  “I’m still here,” he said, his tone flat.

  “I knew you probably wouldn’t be happy to hear that.”

  Mateo, who’d been walking ten to fifteen feet in front of her, turned around. “Everything okay?” he mouthed, a concerned expression on his face.

  She nodded, gave him a thumb’s up. He smiled and turned back around.

  Her father exhaled slowly on the other end of the line. “I’m just…surprised, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine. But we’ve had some really good talks.” Now wasn’t that the understatement of the year, she thought as she ducked under a low branch.

  There was another long stretch of silence—a pregnant pause, if ever there was one—before her father spoke again. “Honey, I’m only going to say this once, because it’s your life, and I can’t live it for you. I respect the choices you make for yourself. But are you sure he’s not just going to break your heart again? He put you through hell the last time.”

  She thought about it for a moment. No, she couldn’t say with any certainty that her heart wouldn’t get broken again. But at least she knew the truth now. Four years ago, Mateo hadn’t left because he didn’t love her. He’d left because he did. “Dad, I appreciate your concern, but I’m a big girl, okay? So when does Marcella need that cake?”

  Back at the mansion, the group gathered in the sitting room, and Selena told them what she knew about the research facility. How to get there. The surrounding area. The layout of the building—what little she’d seen of it.

  “It was always Ms. Karza waiting for me in the lobby,” she said. “No one else. She tasted the samples there, and that’s where I delivered the food for their events. Never to a kitchen or a conference room. Citing security clearance issues, she said her employees would set up the food themselves.”

  “There wasn’t even a receptionist?” Zeph dwarfed the piano bench he was sitting on, making it look more delicate than it was.

  Selena shook her head. “I never saw anyone else, actually. Wait. I take that back. The first time I catered one of their events, I did see a few people. Three women walked across the back of the lobby, behind where Ms. Karza was standing, but that was it. I never saw anyone else.”

  Roxy leaned forward in her seat and steepled her fingers. “Do you happen to remember what they were wearing?”

  Selena had to think for a moment. It had been several months. “White smock-like robes. I assumed they were some sort of lab coats since it was a research facility.”

  “That’s what they wear to a purification ceremony,” Roxy said. “They do them at every full moon.”

  “Purification ceremony?” Selena asked, not sure she really wanted to know.

  “It’s a blood ritual they perform to break their fast. They celebrate with food and drink afterward.” Something about Roxy reminded her of a college professor who was passionate about what she was teaching.

  “Yeah, Selena’s food,” Zeph said. “Bitches.”

  “And her blood,” Mateo added through gritted teeth.

  My blood. Selena swallowed nervously and rubbed her throat as she tried to make sense of it all.

  Roxy nodded. “It would appear so.”

  Kip cleared his throat, breaking his silence. “You don’t think DBs found her and came to her house at night? Or took her back to their den? That’s what they usually do.”

  “I didn’t detect any DB scent at her house,” Mateo said. “They didn’t come for her there.”

  “I’m confused, though,” Selena said. “If they took my blood here, how did it get on the black market in New Orleans?”

  “I suspect this particular sect is working with Darkbloods,” Roxy answered. “Unusual, but not unheard of. The DB network is more extensive than the Agency likes to admit.”

  “Yeah, and it helps that the Agency is so fucking corrupt in New Orleans,” Mateo said with contempt. “The DBs down there are selling blood that comes from everywhere.”

  Zeph nodded at Mateo’s assessment, “Unfortunate, but true.”

  “G
ot blood you can’t sell on y’alls home turf?” Mateo said in a fake Southern accent. “Come here and we’ll sell it for ya.”

  Selena’s throat went dry. That confirmed it then. She’d been an unwitting blood donor for a cult’s macabre ceremonies, not once, but several times.

  Mateo cursed and put a protective arm around her. “I’m going to fix this, Selena. It’s never going to happen to you again. Never.”

  She just hoped that Mateo was right.

  Chapter 11

  It was almost ten o’clock by the time the group headed back to the helicopter. Finn estimated it would take fifteen or twenty minutes to get to the compound. And if things went well, Mateo told her, they could be back by midnight.

  Zeph looked at him as if he were crazy. “More like right before dawn.”

  They were almost to the edge of the forest when Mateo turned around and jogged back. “I almost forgot.” He reached in his pocket and threw her a set of car keys. “But please don’t go anywhere. I need you to hang tight until this is all over.”

  She smiled at his protectiveness. “Don’t worry. Brenna will keep me in line.” She kissed him again. “Be careful.”

  Once she and Brenna were back inside the mansion, they scoured cupboards, closets and shelves, looking for a deck of cards or a game they could play.

  “Can you move those for me?” Brenna asked, pointing into a cupboard.

  Selena looked over. “Those candlesticks?” They didn’t look very heavy.

  Brenna nodded. “They’re silver. We’re highly sensitive to silver—it weakens us, much like the sun does. I’m surprised Mateo’s family even has them.”

  Selena moved the candlesticks out of the cupboard. Right behind them were a few board games and several decks of cards. A few minutes later, they were sitting at the table in the kitchen, drinking herbal tea, eating crackers, and playing gin rummy.

  “So, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you and Finn meet?”

  “He was a blood slave and I rescued him.” Brenna went on to tell her about how Finn had been held captive for weeks as the blood slave of a very powerful man.

  “And how are things going?” She didn’t want to pry, but she needed to know. “How do you keep from attacking him?”

  “Is that what Mateo is worried about?” Before she could answer, Brenna continued, “Of course he’s worried. I was too. The truth is, the scent of a sweetblood will always be appealing to us. But you can learn to manage it.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Maybe the fact that his blood is there for me when I want makes me less desperate, if that makes sense.”

  Selena thought she understood. “Like when you’re on a diet and you’d kill for a candy bar because you can’t have one. But when you’re not on a diet, you feel no big urge to binge because you can have a candy bar if you want.”

  Brenna smiled. “Exactly.”

  A big gust of wind rattled the house and rain began pelting the roof.

  “I hope the weather doesn’t get too bad,” Brenna said, casting a worried glance toward the window. “Otherwise Finn won’t be able to fly.”

  Chapter 12

  Although they were buffeted by the storm, Mateo watched with admiration as Finn managed to set the helicopter down in a field about a mile from the facility. The man stayed behind with the aircraft while the rest of them, armed with silver weaponry, made their way on foot.

  The nondescript structure was built into the mountainside, just as Selena had described, so the access points were limited. After they cut a hole in the chain-link fence, Roxy broke them into two groups. She and Zeph would go in through the front, while Mateo and Kip would try to gain access via the delivery entrance. Their goal was to locate and free any sweetbloods before the sisterhood knew they were there. Vampires addicted to Sweet were very territorial. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill a blood slave in order to keep them out of the hands of another vampire.

  Mateo and Kip headed for the underground parking garage. Crouching low, they ran from pillar to pillar until they reached the loading dock on the far side. They hadn’t seen any cameras, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Spotting a lone security guard on the platform, Mateo snuck closer. He was only a few feet away from her when his boot caught the edge of the concrete step. She spun around at the sound and reached for the comm device attached to her shoulder.

  Shit. He bounded up the steps.

  “Intru—” He stripped away the device, quickly subdued her, then cuffed her to an exposed metal pipe with a pair of silver handcuffs.

  “Damn,” Kip growled. “Do you think anyone heard?”

  Mateo was about to say he wasn’t sure when the sound of a loud alarm cut through the still night air. “That would be a yes. Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

  Once inside, Kip paused and sniffed. “Three sweetbloods. Two females and a male.” He was a highly skilled Tracker, Mateo had learned, capable of distinguishing and tracking almost any scent. “This way.”

  Mateo sprinted after him down a dimly lit corridor, the alarm continuing to echo off the walls. At the third door on the right, Kip stopped. “They’re in here. And they have company.”

  Mateo didn’t bother trying the door. Weapons drawn, he kicked it down. He was surprised to see a small but well-furnished apartment. He’d been expecting a holding cell of some sort.

  The three sweetbloods had been sitting around a table, but they jumped to their feet at the noise. Their guard, a small woman in a brown pantsuit, lunged not at Mateo and Kip, but at the captives. Before either of them could get across the room, she had one of the sweetbloods by the throat, fangs inches from the woman’s jugular.

  “Back off,” the vampire hissed, “or she dies.”

  Mateo took a step backward and motioned for the other two sweetbloods to come toward him.

  The man shook his head. “We want to stay here.”

  Kip curled his lips into a sneer. “Talk about a fucked-up mind suggestion.”

  “No,” the human woman said. “It’s not like that. In exchange for our blood, they’re going to turn us.”

  If that was true, it was so fucking illegal. But then so was letting Darkbloods take the blood and sell it on the black market. The deal was probably just a ploy to gain the humans’ cooperation; the sisterhood had no intention of turning them.

  Mateo saw a flash from the corner of his eye. He turned to see Kip’s knife flying through the air to land with a thunk in the vampire’s chest, a hair’s breadth from the woman she was holding. Holy fuck. He’d never have taken a chance like that. A fraction of an inch further and the woman would’ve been dead.

  Jaw agape as if she couldn’t believe what was happening, the vampire released the human and sunk to the ground. Then her body began to charcoal, folding in on itself until all that was left was a zipper and a few metal buttons.

  After getting the all-clear from Roxy through his earpiece, they led the dazed sweetbloods into the corridor and headed back the way they had come. Roxy and Zeph were in the lobby along with at least a dozen handcuffed dakai.

  “Might as well get comfortable, gentleman,” Roxy said, folding her arms over her chest. “I’ve called HQ for a transport. It’s going to be a while.”

  Get comfortable? Ha. Not until he got back to Selena. He ran a hand through his hair and wondered what she was doing. Was Brenna telling her what a vampire/human relationship was like? Was Selena even interested in something like that with him? Even after knowing all that he’d done?

  “You,” said one of the dakai, interrupting his thoughts. It was an older woman in a white pantsuit, the leader. The silver handcuffs had drained her energy, but her eyes were still bright. “I smell her all over you.”

  What was she talking about? “You’re confused,” he told her, gesturing toward the sweetbloods. “I haven’t bitten any of your sweetblood captives, but one of your lackeys almost did.”

  “Not them. Selena Tosca,” the woman said slowly, each syllable an effort. “My cater
er. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re sleeping with her and she showed you the rum.”

  Anger coursed through his body like a jolt of electricity. “You seem to have forgotten about her blood turning up on the black market. That’s the reason we’re here.”

  “Black market? Her blood? Please.” She rolled her eyes. “I haven’t touched her or her blood.”

  “Then one of your Darkblood cohorts has.”

  The woman’s expression went ice cold. “I have no dealings with Darkbloods. Never have. Never will.”

  She had to be lying. He turned to Kip. “Can you tell how long it’s been since DBs have been here?” Because of their all-blood diet, they had a subtle but unmistakable stench that resembled rotten meat.

  The man shrugged. “Not in the past few months, but I don’t know beyond that. The scent would be too old even for me to detect.”

  Kip’s words sent Mateo reeling. If Selena hadn’t been drained by Darkbloods here at the dakai compound, then where had it happened? He’d been to her house and hadn’t picked up the scent there either.

  The woman smiled coldly as realization dawned in her eyes. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you? Think you’re strong enough to resist the temptation night after night? Day after day? Good luck with that.” She laughed, and the sound was like an ice pick, chipping away at his heart.

  He loved Selena. That much was true. But was he strong enough not to hurt her tomorrow? Next year? What about ten years from now?

  His phone buzzed, and he absently pulled it from his pocket, his brain trying to sort out this new information. Since learning about the Sweet-laced rum, he’d assumed Selena’s client was the one responsible for her blood turning up on the black market, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  He looked at the screen. The text from Selena nearly brought him to his knees.

  It was one word.

  Help.

  Chapter 13